Every weekend for the past four years the pastor at New Beginnings church in Ohio has led his congregation in protest outside the Foxhole Strip Club. Besides voicing their disgust, they also would videotape the license plate numbers of the patrons and then post them online.

The strippers decided enough was enough and decided to protest outside of the church. With signs that promoted their own scripture verses (Matthew 7:15: Beware of false prophets who come to you in sheep's clothing) the girls showed up on the sidewalk outside the church in bikinis and super soakers. Although the squirt guns were for the purpose of playfully getting each other wet, I’m sure many of the men on their way into the church doors could have used cooling off.

The war of words has hurt a lot of feelings. One dancer, a married mother of six kids had this to say:

“These church people say horrible things about us... They say we're home-wreckers and whores. The fact of the matter is, we're working to keep our own homes together, to give our kids what they need.”

The pastor’s heart, like Pharaoh’s, seemed to only get harder.

"They [our church members] have now seen the evil firsthand. This has just made us stronger."

The Foxhole owner, who tried to sue the church to get them to stay away, sees it differently,

"They're just mad because their wives won't let them come to my club."

If this was the end of the story, I’d just make fun of the pastor for treating people the way he is while having the church name, “New Beginning Ministries.” Thankfully, it doesn’t end here.

After hearing about this conflict a ministry called JC’s Girls from Michigan met with the church and encouraged them to rethink their approach if they wanted to reach the strippers spiritually. Then they met separately with the dancers and had the opportunity to pray with them.

On Sunday when three of the dancers went back to the sidewalk outside the church they were surprised by a new warmer attitude from the congregation. The women of the church filed out into the street and began hugging the dancers, apologizing to them, leading to tears on both sides. When the pastor came he walked straight to one of the dancers with his arms opens. She responded that she wasn’t a whore and then accepted his embrace.

Unfortunately the story doesn’t end here.

Though people are treating each other with more compassion, the church can’t get past the morality of the stripping and plan to keep showing up outside the club and pushing for it to close. The club owners and dancers, not wanting to give up their paychecks, plan to keep hanging out in front of the church in their swim suits.

Personally, I doubt that Jesus would hang out in the strip club on Saturday night, but neither do I think he’d sit still for a message in this church on Sunday mornings.

An environmental group on Wednesday called for a halt to baptisms in the Jordan River where tradition holds that Jesus was baptized, saying the waters there were dangerously polluted.

The group issued the call following media reports that Israel's health ministry had urged the tourism ministry to stop people bathing in the river, saying it posed a health risk.

In recent years the flow of the river has slowed to a dirty trickle as fresh water running into the river has been replaced with sewage.

"Sadly, the lower Jordan River has long suffered from severe mismanagement with the diversion of 98 percent of its fresh water by Israel, Syria and Jordan and the discharge of untreated sewage, agricultural run-off, saline water and fish pond effluent in its place," the statement said.

“These are my beloved… Hey! You guys are dunking yourselves in toilet water!”

Is a baptism experience still ranked higher when being done in the Jordan river, even with the sewage? What would Jesus do?

Pastor Robert Randolph loves his wife. He even buys her dresses, bras and panties. What he really loves is keeping her and other women in their place, which isn’t apparently in any leadership function of the Church of God.

“When a woman goes down they go down all the way!”

“God made man. He made woman for man. Took woman out of man. They should be our subordinates.”

“I’m not a professor… I know a little bit of Hillbilly and a little bit of Yankee, but I know the Word of God; I’m a Holy Ghost-filled preacher.”

“You women are wonderful, but you don’t deserve this.”

“We let them cut their hair, wear pants and now we are gunna give them ceegars and let them sit on the floor with us. NO! NO!”

This blog is a *fun* attempt at figuring out what should truly be credited to Jesus, Religion, Hype, Tradition, Superstition, Satan, Oral Roberts and his Friends, or The Squirrel.

Jesus or Squirrel background

One Sunday a pastor was using squirrels for an object lesson for the children. He started, "I'm going to describe something, and I want you to raise your hand when you know what it is." The children nodded eagerly.

"This thing lives in trees (pause) and eats nuts (pause)..." No hands went up. "And it is gray (pause) and has a long bushy tail (pause)..." The children were looking at each other nervously, but still no hands raised. "It jumps from branch to branch (pause) and chatters and flips its tail when it's excited (pause)..."

Finally one little boy tentatively raised his hand. The pastor quickly called on him. "Well," said the boy, "I know the answer must be 'Jesus' ... but it sure sounds like a squirrel!"